Tag: college

According to MONEY Magazine, 3 Ways to Get More College Merit Aid, the percentage of students receiving merit aid has tripled in the past 20 years. In 2014-15, approximately two-thirds of full-time students paid for college with grants and scholarships. Approximately 57 percent of financial aid dollars awarded to undergraduates was in the form of grants. They tend to be more available at private schools.
State schools do not typically offer merit scholarships. According to the MONEY Magazine's List of The 46 Best Colleges for Getting Big Merit Scholarships, only about 9% received scholarships. A few exceptions are making the effort to use merit scholarships to lure more out-of-state students, i.e., Alabama, North Dakota and South Carolina.
Colleges that typically have a 20% acceptance rate have only 7% receiving merit aid. At schools where at least a third of their students received merit aid, the average acceptance rate was 61%. Ultimately, it's usually the lesser known schools that offer the most merit grant money....

If you're the parent of a college-bound teen, you have probably driven yourself up the wall trying to read all of the opinion pieces out there about costs of sending your son or daughter to college.
You probably have also read a good many articles about whether it really matters if your teen does or does not get into Ivy League schools.
Here at Breakthrough Test Prep, we make it our business to be straight with parents not only about SAT/ACT issues, but also about these larger questions that everyone confronts.
So, here's our advice: we agree wholeheartedly that WHERE your teen ends up going – particularly true for the undergraduate years – likely will not determine WHO your son or daughter is or lock in their longer-term job prospects. The consensus is where your teen goes to graduate school is what really matters.
This debate has certainly continued for decades, and there are those out there who insist that only Ivy League credentials...